As a business organization grows and spreads out to geographically separated branch locations, the associated information technology (IT) network infrastructure often also changes. One aspect of changing IT network infrastructure is the desire to establish and maintain a secure private network associated with the business organization that is distributed geographically. In many cases, a private network between branch locations is established over public networks. One example of this networking technique is site-to-site virtual private network (VPN) deployment. To set up and maintain these private networks, various networking devices such as routers, switches and security appliances are utilized.
In recent years, various technology trends such as the migration of computing resources to the cloud, and a rapid increase in mobile device data usage have contributed to an increase in private network traffic among networking devices. Networking devices have traditionally been limited to only using one network connection to support establishment of a private network, even if the networking device had multiple external-facing ports that could support other network connections. Although this technique offers simplicity, the limitation of using a single network connection to establish a private network has resulted in a bandwidth constraint as the demand for networking resources increases.
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